I'm on a journey with a set destination. Heaven! I want to journey well and bless those traveling alongside me. I don't want to sit - I want to make progress - everyday. But I know, I must feel the brush of His Robes, or I'll never make the climb. This blog will chronicle my journey, but more importantly, it will share my moments of reaching for the Robes of Christ.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

A Story of Faith

She stared ahead as bare feet skimmed
over red dirt and she wondered, what will come of me.

Her tattered
blue and white school uniform hung from shoulders burdened with
weights not meant for a child to carry. Around the curve on the trail
her friends would be waiting, the path to school was more wisely
traveled together. The journey would be quick; the schoolmaster would
be harsh if they delayed.

In her thirteen years, hard lessons had
come. She'd buried her father, then 3 blinks later, her mother. It
might have been 3 years, but for her mind it was all a fast moving
blur. Three children were left, Faith and two younger siblings. Left
in the care of her mother's family, they were not abandoned. So why
could she never seem to escape the sound of shoveled dirt landing on
a hollow, wooden, casket? It was the last sound she heard before
sleep came each night, and the first sound she heard before the
rooster called each morning. Another year with bare feet gave her not
a second thought, but the passing of endless days never uttering the
words “momma” or “daddy”, that revealed a lack in her
innermost heart no covering could protect, no words could sooth.

But today, fear had a white-knuckle
grip on her stomach. Keeping morning ugi down was proving to be a
monumental task as her feet padded down the path.

In Uganda there is a law that declares
if anyone is caught molesting a child, then few questions will be
asked, before they are thrown in jail.

Great in theory, this appears to lend
weight in the direction of protecting children. But in reality, there
are always clever ways deceitful people are able to circle 'round to
the back door of something and find a crack.

The backdoor crack in this law goes
something like this...

There are evil-minded people who
“promote” their young daughters or nieces to lustful men. Warped
men who look with perverted eyes, and plan with darkened hearts how
they can take innocence. The “seller” may be a family member,
looking to make a schilling as they “off the record”
sell their own niece or daughter. However, there's a wicked catch.
When the “client” arrives and begins taking what he has paid for,
the “seller” secretively takes photos using their cell phone.
With proof now in the photos of the violation of this Ugandan law,
the “seller” eagerly threatens to call the police and prosecute
the “offender”. The perpetrator begs for mercy, the negotiations
of bribery begin, and the lost innocence of a devastated child is
ignored. Not only has she been sold ---- she's been sold by those who
should have been her protectors. The “agents” (usually family
members) begin working their deal. “If you pay us $----, then no
police..., if no, then we have proof...” More money exchanges
hands. The child bleeds in more ways than can be seen.

It's not a trumped up story in a book
or headlines on the evening news.

But instead, it is reality for too many
little girls.

As she walks to school, struggling to
ignore the hot breath of fear on her unprotected neck, she
concentrates on holding breakfast down. More food will be long in
coming, she needs to keep the ugi down.

Her mother's sister had come to care
for her after her mother's death. Auntie Anne was kind and good, the
children were safe in her care. But rumors were rumbling and auntie
had cautioned little Faith. The family of her deceased father were
plotting. Was her father rolling over in his grave? Did he know, his
own family wanted to “sell” his daughter? Before that could
happen they would have to take her from Auntie Anne, and that would
not be an easy thing to do. The community had been alerted, the
rumors were being used as a warning, “Protect little Faith, protect
all the girls. Trouble is lurking.” So daily, little Faith walked
with caution traveling between home and school. No one should walk
alone, girls would walk together.

Faith knew she was in danger. But
threats could not put schemers behind bars, and absence from school
would only cause marks to decline on test day. She had to go, fear
had to be beaten.

She released the long-held air from her
lungs when she saw her friends waiting under the mishola tree; never
even realizing she'd been holding her breath since leaving her
auntie's hut. Little Faith kicked off fear as her friends smiled.
Feeling safer with them beside her, shoulders shifted under her worn
shirt, eyebrows rested above tired brown eyes.

Many miles away, Auntie Eve is praying.
She knows the dangers young Faith is facing, and she knows her
sister Anne is doing all she can to keep her safe. Eve laments again
over the painful moments of seeing her sister's life slip away,
leaving three orphans behind. But what can she do to help as this
trouble appears on the horizon. She's in Kenya, Anne and Faith are in
Uganda; a country spans between them. She prays.

Faith walks with purpose beside the
familiar bare feet of her friends. Life is hard for each of them, but
they are together. Strength in numbers.They smile at one another.

Laughing together over things little
girls find funny, they are almost there.

But a car swerves off the road and
rough hands grab at little girls like lion claws. It happens in a
flash, but their minds see it all in slow motion.

There are screams.

Tears.

Joy hides in the bushes as fear snarls.

Before she knows it, her friends
disappear and the car lurches wildly down the hole-pocked road.

And what can a thirteen year old little
girl do in those moments?

Three friends stand alone, there had
been four. As the car disappears, flying dust swallows up their
friend. Faith has been taken. Looking at one another, no words come,
only screams as they run wildly to school. The headmaster rushes to
them listening carefully to their horrid tale. He calls Auntie Anne,
she calls the police. They all know little Faith's every breath now
hangs by a thread.

Anne in Uganda calls Eve in Kenya as
police begin their search and Faith hears only the sounds in her
head, of dirt being shoveled onto a hollow wooden lid. It's the first
sound she had heard after her mother's face was covered, it's the
dark sound that comes when she can not face this pain. Life goes
numb.

The aunts know, prayer is the only
thing they can do. Thoughts must not be allowed to careen them over
the cliff, they must control their minds. Prayers, to the One who
sees and knows and can save. Prayer is the only right response when
life goes so wrong.

The aunt in Kenya is our own dear Eve.
It is her niece who has been taken.

We've met little Faith once, when her
mother passed away and we visited the family to show respect.

But now, in these dark days, when
little Faith has been kidnapped by the family of her deceased father,
Eve's grief became visibly evident. Her heart pained so deeply for
her niece, her eyes rarely left the floor. After sharing with us all
that was happening in Uganda, our home remained silent as we each
went to separate rooms to pray to the only One who could save this
stolen child.

We prayed together...

We prayed alone...

For 24 hours few words were shared as
we each held to prayer and clung to hope. Internet was down. No
emails for prayer could be sent. Prayers don't need internet. Nothing
can separate us from the One who is over all things.

It would take the hand of God to rescue
this child.

Nothing else could do it.

And i thought to myself ---- how many
little girls are treated in these ways, and no cover of prayer
reaches into the darkness for them. Oh God, the evilness of mankind,
how grievous it is.

Idi Amin trampled over the very ground
this little girl was now being consumed by. The soil of that land has
soaked up much blood. But Lord, this innocent child, may we see Your
hand move these mountains of evil and save her from the monsters who
have taken her.

Twenty four hours passed. Prayers stuck
in our throats, but tears kept them flowing. Pleading for the life of
a child, it can freeze blood in veins.

But that evening, Eve called with the
news.

Little Faith had been saved.

The police had surrounded the huts of
the deceased father's family. Auntie Anne had been forceful, more
demanding than most African women. Carrying witnesses who testified
of the plotting family's threats to take the child, this aunt did not
stay silent! She did what good people should do, she fought for what
was right. “Evil prevails when good people are silent...”

Both aunts were doing all they could;
one demanding police attention, the other calling out to God.

And a child was saved.

Worth repeating.

A child was saved.

So often we can get to words like those
and we cheer and celebrate and say, “What a great story! How great
to know they rescued her from certain horror...”

But when you live up close to the
endless flow of the stories, you realize something that maybe can't
be seen as easily from a distance.

The child's life is not finished, it's
not over for the child. There is still very present danger as she
walks the path to school the next day, week, year, decade.

Just because the first plan was foiled
by an over-zealous auntie, doesn't mean the destroying evil will fold
its hands and sit down. Oh no. We must step out of the mentality that
everything is solved and the bad guy is defeated all within the one
hour drama, and just in time for a commercial break.

For little Faith is still alive, still
breathing, still falling asleep at night hearing the thud of dirt on
wood as she ends another day wishing she could have said the words,
“I love you mother”.

She's still a little girl with fears,
and now she needs to stand stronger than ever before, because she
knows what it feels like to be gripped by cruel hands and thrown into
the back of a car. Her screams were ignored. She must work that
horror back out of her mind. Faith still lives. Faith has more
chapters to come. She still is a little girl in Africa, a little girl
------- in Africa -----

So what happened next in her story?

When the police found Faith, her
father's family had locked in her a ramshackle shack behind their
huts. Plots were being formed as to who they could bribe for the
highest price. Perhaps they were planning to let the trauma of the
kidnapping pass, or time to let the news of the kidnapping fade, or
they might have been planning to send her to another area for the
“sell”. Regardless of their reasons, their hesitation gave time
for her rescue before she was molested. When the police found her
tied in the shack, they untied her, carried her to a nearby safe
place, and raided the family compound. But... as evil as the plots
were --- no arrests were made. No one was locked up for traumatizing
a little girl. No one could be convicted of what they hadn't
done...yet. And after all, couldn't they simply say they wanted to
visit with their niece and that is why they took her??

So loud words were shared, police
intimidated, Faith was rescued, but no one suffered for what they had
done. Only the child bore the wounds of it all.

Immediately both aunts began praying
and trying to figure out what to do to keep Faith safe.

The fact that she had been saved, could
only be celebrated a short time, for the clear presence of real
danger was still lurking near. One foiled kidnapping only meant the
ruthless family would now hire another to kidnap her again, this time
carrying her far away from local eyes.

Eve and Anne, good aunties of Faith,
prayed and talked and a plan came clear.

Anne would send little 13 year old
Faith on a bus, from Uganda to Kenya, to the waiting arms of Eve.
Anne could not travel with her, for she had 2 other children to care
for, and travel costs would be too much for them all to travel
together. Eve could not go to get her, for she too had 2 small
children at home. Eve has four children of her own: one is 20 and out
of the home working as a seamstress, another is 17 at boarding
school, then twins a boy and girl, 9 years old living with her. Eve
is a single mother, having been abandoned by her husband 9 years +9
months ago. The night he left her, he brutalized her terribly
intending to end her life. She did not die. Instead, 9 months later
she gave birth to twins.

Seven years after that nightmarish
night, God moved us to Kenya, and as we asked a dear friend here to
let us know if he knew of a good woman who needed a good job, Eve
walked into our lives.

Can you see the hand of God at work?

We do.

Eve with her three youngest children - this pic was taken about 1 month before the events shared in this blog took place.

Auntie Eve knows what ruthless hands
feel like. She's raising 4 children alone, and now she peacefully
says, “It is for me to give little Faith a safe place to grow up. I
can do this mom and dad, it's why i've been given a safe home. So she
can have a safe place to grow.” Now, again, can you see the beauty
of God at work?

We do.

Two days later, little Faith arrives on
a bus.

On that same day, two dear friends
arrive to visit us from America.

That evening, one of our friends hands
us an envelope with $100 and a beautiful note of love and support.
Sent from a young lady back home, she simply shared her desire to
send the money to be used in whatever way we felt God guiding us.

That night ---- when the dust had
settled from the whirl of the day ---- we prayed.

Thanking God for the safe arrival of
Faith to Eve's home and our guests to ours.

Thanking God for saving Faith and for
blessing Eve with a good home to welcome her into.

Thanking God that our children were
safe and sound and had not been taken from us...

Thanking God for dear ones at home who
support and love us and help us in countless ways.

And then ---- asking God, “Be sure
and show us Lord, where you want your $100 spent...”

No sooner had “Amen” come out of my
mouth, than i knew for sure. Like a wave on the ocean's shoreline, it
rolls all around you, leaving you standing in the same spot, but you
know you've been touched.

The money had been sent weeks before
--- from America --- and it was for little Faith's needed school
fees. The money had begun it's journey to us, even before she had
been kidnapped. Her Abba knew what would be needed and where. That
money has now paid for little Faith's school fees for one whole year.
She sleeps peacefully tucked safe inside her Auntie Eve's little two
room home, with cousins to play with and a good school with new
friends.

These days, little Faith is found
walking with her cousins to a nearby school, wearing a new school
uniform and shiny, black leather shoes AND sparkling white socks. She
smiles. She's a whole country away from those who plotted dark
schemes.

She's safe.

She has a future ahead of her.

And the sound of dirt hitting hollow
wood is beginning to fade away.

Instead she closes her eyes at night,
to the sounds of giggles and prayers and love all around her --- and
morning's light brings still more of the same.

About Me

Married to Steve, mother to Michael, Maggie, and Peter, daughter of Donald and Kathryn Glover, sister to Kathy Williams and Jeff Glover ----- follower of Jesus Christ, and life-long learner. I was an elementary school teacher for 14 years and then worked serving those preparing to go on missions trips to Africa. I've enjoyed free-lance writing for several years. Now, we serve in Kenya teaching Godly Principles of Marriage as we mentor and encourage couples to bless each other, bless their children and homes, honor God, and multiply goodness around them. What a life we are living... so thankful.